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Oyster Pie

A savory pie filled with oysters, fine herbs, shallots, mushrooms, parsley, spices, and butter or oil, finished with Champagne wine or béchamel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Oyster Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Shell the oysters and scald them in their own water.

  2. Chop some of the oysters and mix with the others.

  3. Add fine herbs, shallots, mushrooms, parsley, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and butter or oil.

  4. Knead the mixture well and pile it into the pie crust.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Before serving, open the pie and pour in Champagne wine or béchamel sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and the body of the filling.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the filling.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury depth to the filling.
Butter or oil
Adds fat, carrying flavour and giving the filling a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Before serving, open the pie and pour in Champagne wine or béchamel sauce.. Adding the liquid after baking keeps it from being cooked off or diluted, so it stays bright and saucy. Opening the pie lets the hot filling release steam and keeps the crust from going soggy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, shallot, mushroom, parsley, pepper, butter, champagne):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, shallot, mushroom, parsley, pepper, butter, champagne. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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